Meeting abstract: Plants sustain all life on earth. Being immobile, plants tune their growth and development to the environment and frequently mount stress and defense responses. As the interface between the environment and the genome, the epigenome is critical for plant survival and adaptability. Indeed, plants have a large arsenal of epigenome regulators, which has led to and continues to lead to new discoveries in the regulation and plasticity of the epigenome. However, understanding the contributions of epigenome modifiers to cellular and nuclear processes remains incomplete. Recent new technologies allow ever more precise insight into the epigenome of entire organisms at all scales, throughout their lifecycle, and in various conditions. This timely conference brings together international scientists from all career stages and research settings who develop and apply novel approaches to understand the role and regulation of the plant epigenome. The meeting will feature recent discoveries illuminating the contribution of non-histone chromatin proteins and regulators, histones, and DNA modification on gene regulation, genome organization, development, and environmental and species interactions, with particular emphasis on innovative epigenome technologies that help uncover fundamental epigenetic mechanisms in diverse plant species. A workshop by early-career researchers, followed by a panel discussion, will focus on utilizing epigenome manipulation to enhance desirable traits in plants and foster interactions and collaborative investigations.

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